2014 F1 cars

The Marussia MR03 has made its first appearance on the third day of F1 testing at Jerez. Max Chilton drove a single installation lap in the car shortly before 3pm.

Team principal John Booth said the MR03 is the product of a “young but experienced and extremely talented technical and engineering group”.

“To have designed a car that is true to the concept first conceived in early 2012, despite the integration of an entirely new powertrain and whilst pushing hard to attain our 2013 constructors?óÔé¼Ôäó championship objective, is a testament to the extent to which we have matured as a technical organisation,” he added.

The team’s latest F1 design is their first to feature a Ferrari V6 turbo engine.

“We have nothing but good things to say about our new relationship with Scuderia Ferrari,” said Booth. “They are extremely professional and have been entirely supportive from the beginning.”

“There is excellent co-operation between our two technical groups in all areas of the new relationship and this has made the considerable challenge of integrating a new powertrain a great deal easier.”

Jules Bianchi and Max Chilton will continue to drive for the team this year, making Marussia the only team besides Mercedes to retain its 2013 driver line-up.

“In view of the significant regulation changes, continuity is key, so it is highly beneficial to our technical team, and the engineering group responsible for developing the car in the field, that we retain the same drivers,” said chief engineer Dave Greenwood.

“What this means is that we have not only been able to optimise our monocoque design around an existing line-up, but we can focus all of our attentions on developing the MR03 with immediate effect.”

Its the livery and angle, it should be on pair with the other cars. Comparing with the caterham the marussia shows for the second year running an improvement in designing and composites, still they have a step to make, so the only chance to see the marussia on the points is if the renaults cant go too far.

@godofwine The sidepods are minuscule, its a very sane design but precise and suave somewhat featurless their soon not to be rivals caterham built a car as blocky as a 90’s videogame whereas this looks like a proper new gen car.

It pretty much gives them a blank canvas to work with. If they get the basics right, it gives them a solid starting point. They can add and subtract parts as need be without having to worry to much about the existing chassis.

It’s always worrying when a team’s lack of budget is clearly viable to even the most casual onlooker in the simplicity of the design. Still, Marussia proved themselves a more strategically and financially pragmatic team than Caterham last year and have probably extracted as much from their budget as could be expected, and with the brilliance of Bianchi, Marussia vs. Caterham might not be a fall gone conclusion in 2014.

Oh… that’s… really boring. Very plain design, made even more so by a livery that looks like it came from a Hot Wheels car. Caterham might be ugly, but now it’s starting to look interesting in a Tom Waits kinda ugly. This is just bland – I guess they went conservative with a hope to develop along with the season.